The Dog Blog

These days, many trainers eat and breathe learning-theory. The Little Book Of Learning Theory (LBOLT) is creedally accepted by one and all, even though little of it works in practice. Please don’t stone me. I am not being heretical. Learning theory is a real and valid description of how computers train animals but the LBOLT offers little for when people teach people or train animals. People are not computers and have neither the consistency, computing power or timing. LBOLT has many constraints in practice. To make matters worse, the really useful principles that LBOLT has to offer are ignored by many trainers, for example, that consequences are binary — from the dog’s point of view either things get better, or worse. Instead, trainers will debate for hours, which quadrant they are in, even though it’s all really a moot debate.

Forget loose leash walking.... I've decided to teach my dog to pull, pull, pull!  Okay, so I'm not going to let her pull all the time... and I do continue to expect a loose leash in many situations... but I am also working to perfect her pulling technique!  Lately, I've been more and more drawn to activities that allow my dogs to do things that they really love to do.  Nose work is one new pursuit that is bringing us all a lot of joy.  I think that activity is what prompted me to allow my Australian Cattle Dog, Myrtle Mae, to pursue another of her passions... pulling!

Lily the Queen died nearly 8 weeks ago. The historically sound triumvirate – 3 kids, 3 cats, 3 dogs — has been fang shwayed into imbalance with 3 kids, 3 cats, and just 2 dogs.

From the very beginning when she came into my life as a gangly rescue pup — serendipitiously and unplanned in January of 2000, Lily kept benevolent control over the human and animal gang. My aide-de-camp. An organic nanny cam. Chase games with Bean. Tolerance of Trip’s terrier antics. A jarring habit of one LOUD bark at the cats if they walked too close to her while she was resting. Never phased the cats. Freaked me out when I wasn’t prepared. I miss it.

Most owners know that they want their dogs to SIT, DOWN, STAY, COME, HEEL.  When it comes to general behaviors, owners have little idea of what behaviors they even want to encourage, let alone how to accomplish the encouragement.  By contrast, ask an owner what they are trying to stop, and there are multiple answers.  Even the most mannerly dogs' "rap sheets" tend to be read out when meeting other dog people.

As positive trainers, it is our responsibility to model the behavior we want to see in other humans.  A small step towards teaching other owners what behaviors they should want is to identify the behaviors our dogs are good at. 

What to look for

No matter how tiny a moment of these behaviors you see, if you reward them, you'll see more!